Knife Fight

Hollywood has seen several political spin doctor satires in the past decade. A notable one being Barry Levinson's Wag The Dog starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman. Knife Fight is set during the preliminary elections where Paul Turner (Lowe) has his hands full backing two major players - Larry Becker (McCormack) and Stephen Green (Harbour). These two are your standard issue senators: purists onscreen, pigs off-screen. And then, there's the saintly character (Carrie-Anne Moss) who in contrast is presented as a genuinely good person wanting to genuinely serve the society through the tainted prism of politics.

What I enjoyed and hated about Knife Fight was its mostly predictable and mostly comforting script. It doesn't take itself too seriously by blandly harbouring over the complex matter of ethics versus personality. Knife Fight manages to remain light-hearted and while that doesn't make it a worthy film, it's not a bad way of spending 90 minutes. If you like Rob Lowe - and desire a Sam Seaborn-Toby Ziegler reunion - this is it!

The audience gets is a casserole of movie elements and little of the satisfaction that comes from watching these types of movies. It's one of those films for which I could guess the plot exactly before I saw it. You can predict the whole movie and ending easily. Worse, these characters were walking cardboards. Overall, the film was..."eh". I was bored through most of it and I left the living room with no intentions to ever see it again. From an artistic standpoint, there were some plot elements and character developments I didn't think were totally needed. They do however drive the story, which seemed to be their purpose, so I can accept them.

There have been recent political campaign movies such as The Ides of March which had a more heavyweight cast. There are classics such as Robert Redford in The Candidate. Knife Fight reminds me of Sidney Lumet's Power from 1986 which also had a high calibre cast but a tepid reception by the critics and at the box office.

Rob Lowe plays Paul a highly sought after, cynical and ruthless election strategist. He declares, 'To win in politics, you have got to be the person who is willing to bring a gun to a knife fight.' Which is something Sean Connery said in The Untouchables before being shot a 100 times!

Paul can deal with any political disaster presumably such as those handled by the campaign team who dealt with Bill Clinton when he ran for Presidency the first time round, when his team realised that their was hardly any woman left in Arkansas that he had not slept with. In fact Chris Lehane, one of the co-writers was an aide to Clinton and Gore.

Paul deals with winners and over the years he has become jaded, cynical and has little time for people who are altruistic.

Things change when he takes on a doctor who runs a free clinic as a candidate for Governor and who tweaks the last shred of idealism left in him. Otherwise there are the usual politicians running for elections who are philanderers or are caught in some embarrassing situations that Paul needs to spin out.

The film is underwhelming and never strongly registers as the script is limp. Lowe underplays his role but apart from Carrie Ann Moss's idealistic character the rest of them are shallow and mean and they are supposed to be liberals as well.

As a political satire it does not work as it is not funny or biting enough. Even with story of the doctor you can guess the twist rather easily.

Some years ago I had a ood Assemblymember representing me in Albany. At least he epresented my point of view aboit 95% of the time. He got caught up in a sex scandal and managed to survive it for two more election cycles.

Watching Knife Fight I thought of him immdiately and it occured to me we lose a lot of good people who get caught up in these things. A lot of good people also never go into public service because they don't want their lives under a microscope. How many of us could withstand the scrutiny?

Rob Lowe and Richard Schiff veterans of West Wing star n tis political drama about a pair of political operators. Lowe has some idealim, but does what he has to for his candidates. Schiff prefers the low road in any event.

The film is scene through the eyes of their new employee Jamie Chung and by the end of the film she has learned her lessons well.

Their three candidates rnning for statewde office Lowe's firm is managing and all have crises of a sort. Eric McCormack the governor of Kentucky who is a Bill Clinton like figure whose libido may get the best of him. David Harbour a Senator from Massachusetts who made one indiscretion that could cost hi his career. Finally my favorite from nife Fight, Carrie Anne Moss an idealistic doctor who runs a medical clinic who wants to be governor of California and for all the right reasons.

Moss is my favorite from the film, but it is a well cast and directed piece ofwork. And one of te most realisti political films out there.

To get elected in office, according to 'Knife Fight', all which is found outside the conventional playbook of politics should be given opportunity, for the good candidate to become governor elected. Even if there's collateral damage attached to the level of having a college girl's life ruined, upto attempted suicides. The far-out morals choices reported today in Washup DC Politics have apparently spread out to Nation, State and County Politics Campaign affairs, where the subversion apparently has sunken back to the level of Roman Empire days, when Julius was stabbed by Brutus. The mantra of fighting crime by hiring even more dangerous criminals is something which has today infected all kinds of aspects of life, where by all means good, bad, legal and or violating state laws, will give the good Lady or Lord the much aspired seat if High Office. This is the theme which is extensively illustrated inside 'Knife Fight' where the end result seems OK. There is one downer though. When the end titles run a small parody of the Battle Hymn of the Republic is played. This is sadly one step beyond the much admired seat in the office of Hollywood fame.